South Coast Daily: United voice would focus U.S. attention

[paineinthearse]

By now, we are all familiar with the South Coast Daily's article "Kerry assails Bush on Iraq" by Steve Urbon

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1516892

...written after a session with the editorial board. Here is that board's collective opinion.

Wasn't it at John Conyers' media hearing that one of the participants suggested that Congress people march into the editorial board rooms of the corporate media and force the facts upon them? It appears the strategy has been put into motion!

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/06-05/06-02-05/a14op114.htm

United voice would focus U.S. attention

Both Sen. John F. Kerry and Congressman Marty Meehan, D-Mass., are scratching their heads about why more Americans aren't raging mad about the daily death toll in Iraq of our young soldiers. They're wondering why more people aren't upset about the tens of hundreds more soldiers returning with serious physical and mental injuries. But when the senator and congressman swung through New Bedford this week and stopped to talk to the editorial board, Iraq was their secondary topic. It should be the most important issue facing the U.S. Congress today.

Instead, these two Democrats were pushing other pet projects to the public. Rep. Meehan is advocating an ethics reform act and Kerry is promoting a health care plan for all children in poverty. Rep. Meehan is honest about the fact that even the Democrats aren't united on what to do about Iraq. Kerry disagrees when questioned about Democratic unity of purpose. He insists that Democrats have a clear set of principles that they all run on. But we know differently. Rep. Meehan is closer to the truth. And that's a big part of the reason that the failed strategy in Iraq is not being addressed with the attention it deserves.

The Democrats aren't articulating their own bold strategy for Iraq. They are tweaking the edges of the Bush strategy. Even leading thinkers in the military have now come out with reports listing the many mistakes the Bush administration has made and is continuing to make in Iraq. In other words, the Democrats have all the materials they need to unite and suggest a more intelligent course for the nation. Last week, the U.S. Army War College issued one of the most damning reports on Bush's entire war on terror since 9/11, saying it lacks clarity and the cost of having no coherent strategy is rising quickly as the insurgency builds in Iraq. "To date, American policy has combined ambitious public statements with ambiguity on the critical particulars," said the report, "American Grand Strategy After 9/11: An Assessment." This report comes weeks after the release of the 2002 Downing Street memo from Tony Blair's administration which shows that the Bush administration planned to "fix" intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq long before Congress even voted to allow the president to take the nation to war.

And yet the Democrats can not unite around this mounting evidence of a colossal failure of leadership and deception that is putting our soldiers in danger every day and our nation in danger over the long term. Sen. Kerry and Rep. Meehan have to stop tweaking around the edges of a failed Bush policy and work to unite their party to change this country's course in Iraq. A united party has a much better chance of grasping the megaphone.

This story appeared on Page A14 of The Standard-Times on June 2, 2005.

JACK IDDON/The Standard-Times
Sen. John Kerry at the Buttonwood Senior Center

Note: cross posted to LBN - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1519153# - and the After Downing Street blog - http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=29&thold=0&mode=0&order=0